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03 October 2017

When you feel like you're drowning

I feel like there's this feeling that has been building up over the past few weeks, but it feels like it's right there just beneath the surface forcing it's way to the top. I suppose I'm due a big cry at some point as I feel like it's been a while. This is who I am though, I suppress feelings and worries until there's no room left, like a bucket slowly filling with water until it reaches the top. Then I get afraid that it will spill and all the contents will come gushing out and cause a flood. This is my way of dealing with things, and I know every now and then I need to let a little of that water out to ease the weight.

In general things are fine, nothing major has happened. But it's just a slow build up of many things, of my everyday life. The week that has just passed is always a big looming shadow for me, I didn't mark it with words this year almost because I was afraid that if I did something would still happen. It's the week that in the past three years bad things have happened to me and my family. We lost our baby at 11 weeks, which actually is something I don't think I have properly processed or gotten over (if you can ever 'get over' it.) There are still moments in everyday where I wonder how our life would have been, friends with children with the same age gap as there would have been between Theo and this baby. I look at them and wonder if that is how our life could have looked. Except it didn't. It wasn't meant to be, or whatever other bullshit saying you want to apply to the situation. I mourn that baby every day. The could and should have beens. The first experience of loss, and the first opening of my eyes to things not going how you thought they would.

Second of course is when we found out about Rohan's heart condition and the grieving for that pregnancy as we knew it. Of the rest of our lives being changed. Once again it's still not something I have really processed, and I know it will take a long long time. Something switched at that time, and we went into survival mode, and I think we're still there. Take each day as it comes and try not to think too far ahead. But it's tough living like that, I want to relax into the life we have without all the extras we have to think constantly about. I want a guarantee that it will all be ok for once, that there's no need to check up in a month or two. Off you go, forget everything that we said, wake up from this dream you've been having and it will all be back to normal. Except it wont. Sometimes I do wonder if we're somehow living this life that isn't real, the things that are happening to us are just fabricated and that any day now we'll wake up. You know I don't ever wish that Rohan wasn't in our lives, but I just wish it could be easier. I know we love Rohan for who he is, but sometimes who he is is difficult and all the extra things that come with it.

I hate the way I still compare, I still eye roll when people complain about their children having a few bad nights of sleep or minor health complaints. I know it's all relative, but it's like you have no idea. But in reality I wish I was those people, I wish I didn't know all this other side, I wish those were my only complaints. Those people who have known heartbreak through miscarriages but go on to have their perfect rainbow baby, that joy we ourselves were robbed of. That magical baby to replace all the hurt from losing that one, only to open up another huge well of worry, upset and hurt.

I think on the surface I really do try and hold it together, to put a happy spin on things because who wants to constantly hear how hard it is. It's not even that it is hard all the time, in relation to days and weeks that have been really difficult, but I guess compared to normal our days are different. Every trip outside is filled with a little bit of dread that I'll have the have a conversation trying to navigate what the hell I say to people about Rohan. How much detail do I go into, what do I say so I don't put people in an awkward situation. How do I respond when they tell me that their walking talking toddler is actually the same age as Rohan and I have to endure that moments silence as they think "oh". None of this is anyone else's fault, I imagine that I'd be the same, not quite knowing what to say. Those people in the shops who smile and make comments about his 'sweet babbling noises' which to me are a constant reminder that he's not yet making any really attempt at words or recognisable sounds, it's not your fault, you're only trying to be nice but it's hard.

It's difficult to not feel resentful. And guilty. The amount of times I feel so guilty for wishing that Rohan was the same as all the others, that our lives should be different. I feel guilty when I read old blog posts about Theo when he was the same age and I find myself desperately wanting that to be Rohan now. That innocence and joy I felt with Theo, that almost naivety. Maybe there were people reading my posts back then in a situation like I am now, reading my complaints about him not sleeping too well and eye rolling me. Maybe there are people reading this now doing the very same about me complaining about Rohan when we could have it so much worse. I feel guilty for that too.

I know what's caused this build up of overwhelming feelings, I know that I've not been exercising and therefore I've not had that space to process my thoughts a little more. I feel like since I started exercising a lot more regularly earlier this year, I used this space less to figure out all that was going on in my head. I love both processes but I guess there wasn't time for both. I've just had a run of bad luck physically these past few weeks (I broke my toe, hurt my back and then got taken out by a bad cold) and this week I was all ready to get back to it, except suddenly I remembered that Rob was away for the night for work and that I couldn't. Add that to the fact that Rohan has been increasingly clingy and needy these past few weeks and I feel like I've had zero time to myself. It all gets too much. The nights haven't been particularly good either and I just feel like I'm running on empty. I need to take some time back for me, but I haven't had the chance.

So that's where I am. I've actually started having some psychology sessions at home to try and help me work my way through some of these issues and feelings, which I really hope will help. I know that perhaps I need to not be so afraid of letting some of these things out, so I don't get to the point where I feel like I'm drowning or going to over flow, but that's a much bigger step to take.

Now that I've got that off my chest I'm going to go and do some yoga, because man I need it.